


Under Fiery Skies

by bluntblade



Series: Tales from the Timeskip [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Badass Finn, Battle, Custom Knights of Ren, F/M, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, POV Finn (Star Wars), POV Kylo Ren, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27175159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluntblade/pseuds/bluntblade
Summary: Finn leads a Resistance mission to a world under attack by Kylo Ren's armies.
Relationships: Finn & Kylo Ren, Finn & Original Character(s), Finn & Temmin "Snap" Wexley, Finn/Rose Tico, Knights of Ren & Kylo Ren, Rose Tico & Original Character(s)
Series: Tales from the Timeskip [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719019
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. The Breaking Storm

“T-minus three hundred! Final checks team, we’re on final approach.”

Finn shook himself, turning away from the viewport and the enemy flagship. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the weight of the repulsor chute strapped to his back, and made the final checks to his gear. Everything secure.

Their U-Wing transport had carried them into the upper atmosphere of Kerothime, ready for a HALO insertion under cover of darkness. Not ideal, but very little about the Galaxy was ideal these days.

“Ready, Rose?”

Rose looked up at him from her seat and smiled nervously. Finn took her hand and squeezed gently before moving on. “Everyone else?”

His little team nodded. Along with Rose, he had three fighters with him here. Ki’rii Volo, an operative who’d joined them on Magna Leptus, and Nyzar and LM-976, two gladiators whom he and Rey had met and freed on that same world. A small team to take into a city under siege, but there weren’t many people he’d rather have backing him. Though, that said…

“Wish we had our other captain and the commander,” growled Nyzar, one hand tight on the hilt of his heavy vibrosword.

“Aren’t I captain enough for you, Nyzar?” Finn smiled.

“Not my meaning, chief. Just like to have a Jedi on the field.”

Now those were two absences which Finn very much felt. Poe was off leading Black Squadron on a raid in First Order territory, and Rey had gone with him. Such were the demands of war, but they could still lament it.

“Fair enough. But we’ve got our gladiators, right?” He put out a hand.

Nyzar took it in a grip that would’ve ground Finn’s bones, were he not wearing an armoured gauntlet. “Kings of the red sands,” he said, now displaying the same fierce smile he’d worn at times in their battles in the arena.

“Damn right.” Finn moved on down the hold. “LM, you sure the ‘chute is gonna be strong enough for you? I mean, you’re packing a lot of plating.”

The old combat droid turned his head to Finn, and somehow managed to look amused. “They’ve tested these pretty thoroughly. The ‘chute will hold up. And as I’ve said before, I’m not letting you go into a warzone without me.”

“Good. Ki’rii?”

Behind her oxygen mask, the Pantoran operative was a paler shade of blue than usual. “Not what I had in mind for my first actual HALO, captain.”

“It’s not too different from the sims, pal.”

“Promise?”

“On my honour.” Finn clapped her gently on the shoulder and headed into the cockpit. “Snap, what’s the weather report?”

Snap Wexley spared a glance. “Good. Barely even a breeze. You’ll have a hell of a view too.” He indicated the view beyond.

Finn snorted. “Well, at least there’s that. See you on the other side.”

“Godspeed, Rebel,” Snap replied.

“Right back at you.”

Finn pulled on his mask as he headed back into the hold, hearing his breath hissing in his ears as he exchanged nods with the others. He settled into it, letting it permeate his consciousness.

Snap’s voice sounded over his commlink. “T-minus thirty seconds!”

Finn rocked back a little on his heels as the bay door slid open, letting in a rush of air and the scream of distant fighter craft. The others came to their feet, returning his “OK?” signal.

“Activating transponders,” Rose spoke into the commlink as she hit an activation stud on her belt. That would flag them as friends to any scopes below.

“Commence jump in ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!”

“May the Force be with us,” Finn said, and leapt.

Wind roared around him in the darkness. Below, the city stretched out like a web of light, already broken in places by fire and smoke.

He turned over to gaze up, seeing the rest of his squad come out of the bay one after the other. LM was already firing up his repulsorchute on partial charge, so his metal weight wouldn’t have him plummeting to earth. Still, they were all out.

Finn looked to the sky beyond them, and felt his breath catch in his chest. Above them, the whole hemisphere blazed and seethed. The worst of the fighting had yet to find its way into the atmosphere, but it wouldn’t be long. The First Order fleet was just too huge, its ships too powerful and its leaders too ruthless to be held off for much more than another hour.

It was a dreadful sight in every sense of the word, and curiously hypnotic. Finn found it took genuine effort to turn his eyes away and turn back to the world below. They were coming down in the outskirts, away from the worst of the fighting.

They fell on, watching the ships overhead recede and the city rushing up to meet them. Now he could see the park which was their designated landing zone. They were on course. Five hundred metres to go on Finn’s HUD. Deploy chutes in three hundred.

Ki’rii’s nervous voice sounded in his ear. “Flares yet?”

He kept his own voice level. “Easy, Ki’rii. Hold the flares until four hundred. That’s hold… hold… now!” Their flares lit, bright blue in the dark. “And deploy chutes!”

To the engineers’ credit, it wasn’t quite as violent a lurch as he’d feared. There were a few grunts of discomfort from the other organic members of the team, but all of them kept control and from there, it was a smooth descent to the grass – and the squad of soldiers who waited for them.

Upon their setting down, the sergeant advanced towards them. He was a burly Mirialan, his craggy face covered in tattoos.

“Captain Finn, welcome to Kerothime. You’re just in time for the party.”

For over a decade, the New Republic had existed in a strange state of wilful complacency. The First Order was derided as “crazy” in the same way as General Organa and her ragged band of Civil War nostalgists. Not exactly the same kind of crazy as the Resistance, of course. They couldn’t be spoiling for a fight, the old Empire had been defeated so resoundingly after all. And if they began to rearm, it would be noticed and they would be dissuaded. That all seemed self-evident. It stood to reason.

So the majority had learned to shrug at the latest talk of a world given over to penal camps, or cities stripped of children who were given over to the Stormtrooper legions. Supreme Leader Snoke found a number of admirers, who said that the Republic could learn a thing or two from his “decisive leadership”. After all, the Republic had no small number of internal drama with its eternal gridlock. The current state of affairs was widely referred to as “the Great Constipation.”

The First Order, meanwhile, seemed free of such troubles. Indeed, in just a few decades they had grown into a strong and cohesive polity – though just how strong, no one within the Republic had any idea. The Resistance offered their estimates, but those were generally laughed at.

Perhaps most insidiously, a certain disdain towards showing an “excessive love of liberty” developed among segments of the political class and intelligentsia, who deemed it an obstacle to the business of “mature politics”. Some revisionist historians began playing up the role of Imperial corruption and inefficiency in the Alliance’s victory, sometimes rubbishing any great urge to liberation as a driving force in dethroning Palpatine. The First Order’s propagandists were very pleased when they heard about that.

Certainly, there were those people, often young or formerly of the Rebellion, who ran off to join the Resistance and other movements, allied to Organa’s. But they were written off as idealists or jaded veterans who wanted to feel like they mattered to the Galaxy again. They would earn themselves a needless death or come home chastened soon enough. Their phony war would only ever be that. It was a mark of the First Order’s forbearance that they hadn’t made an issue of it.

And then one day, people across the Galaxy looked up at the sky and saw the fabric of space torn and bleeding as the Hosnian Cataclysm’s aftershocks rippled through spacetime. Before the Republic even knew what had happened, three worlds at the heart of their domain had been obliterated, taking with them the Senate and the cream of their fleet with it. 

The First Order hadn’t waited even a day after that. A vast armada had come out of the Unknown Regions under the command of Allegiant General Enric Pryde, a veteran of the Empire. That much-vaunted discipline and efficiency was now applied to conquest and subjugation. Armies and navies crumbled under their guns, worlds trembled beneath the tread of armoured boots.

The destruction of the Starkiller, the death of Supreme Leader Snoke and the wreck of his flagship over Crait had barely slowed the tyrants’ advance. His successor, Kylo Ren, continued the campaign just as ferociously as before. Perhaps even more so, given his preference for leading attacks in person.

The momentum of the invasion grew and grew, as systems which had already been rattled were now plunged into terror with each new offensive.

The Resistance had been brutalised in the days after Hosnia, and kept out of the line of fire. The First Order thought little enough of it at the time; no one had come to save them on Crait after all. The rabble was finished, and there was the hated Republic to carve up.

Not that every Republic world was laying itself open for the conquerors’ blades, however. There were those who guarded tirelessly against complacency and diligently maintained their forces, even risking censure for skirting restrictions on military build-up. They also maintained discreet links with the Resistance, and as the First Order began to move in the wake of the Hosnian Cataclysm, these were among the only systems not paralysed by shock.

Kerothime was one such system. Under the Old Republic that hadn’t been so – it had barely had a military. But thirty years of Imperial exploitation, or Kerothime’s people labouring on shipyards and in factories, had changed that. When Palpatine’s regime crumbled, the people of Kerothime had resolved not to find themselves vulnerable to such abuse again. Its government had been staunch members of Leia Organa’s Populist faction, remembering well the suffering which the Empire had inflicted on their world and arguing for the First Order to be contained.

More pertinently, they had built large numbers of war machines, and even developed a number of starfighter and ship designs. Plenty of these went to other worlds and the New Republic military, but the Planetary Defence Force kept a sizeable proportion for themselves. Kerothime had sought and got extensive training for its new military from Rebel Alliance veterans, skirting censure from the New Republic government for their trouble.

When Hosnian Prime was reduced to molten slag, the people of Kerothime were shocked, but not as much as most. They’d never expected Snoke and his generals to let bygones be bygones. The Empire and its children just didn’t work that way.

In the weeks after the Cataclysm, they’d taken in other forces – fleets or squadrons running from First Order invasions. Some ran on, seeking shelter deeper in Republic territory or beyond its borders. But there were plenty who looked for worlds which might be able to make a stand, and here they found one such world. For two months, Kerothime’s soldiers had drilled constantly, and consolidated their new forces.

So when the First Order came to Kerothime, they found a world standing grimly against them. They found a large, well-maintained fleet, staffed by able crew, and two hundred thousand soldiers on the ground. It would take a colossal invasion force to dislodge them, and even then the struggle would be brutal.

But the fleet which ripped its way into orbit and delivered the First Order’s ultimatum was led by a Super Star Destroyer, all obsidian armour plating and with a spear-sharp prow. It was named the _Subjugator_ , it was the flagship of the Supreme Leader, and brutal was exactly how Kylo Ren liked his battles.


	2. Jade Six

Tannell, corpsman of the Kerothime Defence Force, fighter pilot, designation Jade Six, would be the first to admit that he wasn’t having a good day. His Spitedragon starfighter trailed a greasy smear of smoke and bled molten metal as it careened through the air.

The Spitedragon was a fine design which took the old Arc-170 model and refitted it for the modern era. It packed plenty of punch, and Tannell had been industriously vaporising TIE Fighters and Bombers for the best part of a day. 

Unfortunately, the heavy fighters had drawn the attention of the enemy wings before too long. The Supreme Leader might not have made an appearance yet, but a pair of Silencers had come screaming into the battlespace with many more TIE Daggers and Interceptors. They'd fallen upon the defenders like raptors.

The Kerothime defence forces had been steadily pushed from orbit into the atmosphere as their fleet was carved up by the invaders. It had made for a gruelling ordeal, broken only by returns to the ground or a ship to refuel and rearm. Tannell’s wing had all got through three full payloads of missiles or more. Which made for a decent kill-count, but the enemy had overwhelming numbers on their side.

Tannell had grown up hearing about the way that the Empire had hurled their personnel into the fire, using them to soak up fire and overwhelm their victims through sheer numbers. Now he was getting to grips with the new breed, he’d made the grim realisation that First Order pilots far outclassed the old generation. They were certainly more adept than the marauders and pilots he’d fought against in the past.

Moreover, they had superior tech at their disposal. One thing the First Order had learned well from their predecessors was not to discount the role of fighter craft. First Order TIE fighters reflected this, far outclassing the highly disposable Imperial models. This being the Supreme Leader’s own fleet, they also boasted large numbers of Interceptors and Daggers – to say nothing of the cutting-edge Silencers in which their aces flew.

Even a defence force as well-equipped as Kerothime’s couldn’t compete with that. They held for as long as they could, but their ships and space stations were steadily overwhelmed, either blasted to ruin or boarded and seized by Stormtroopers. The First Order clawed their way into orbit, hemming the skies above the capital city.

Now, Tannell had to concede that things were becoming untenable. Not just for his ravaged squadron, but for him specifically. Something in his cockpit was smoking, a salvo from a TIE Dagger had taken out his gunner along with one of its torpedo launchers, his astromech droid wasn't responding, the enemy didn’t seem to be flagging at all, and just now he’d established that his ejector seat wouldn't obey him.

His hackles rose - literally in his case, as he was a Bothan. Another TIE Bomber wing had come into view, ten of the ugly craft and their escorts sweeping in to rain down bombs on a quadrant of the city. The same one the First Order had been targeting all day, paving the way for a ground invasion.

“See them?” he called to his two remaining wingmen, waiting impatiently until he got their responses. “Handle the fighters for me, I'll take the bombers.”

“Copy.”

A squeeze of the accelerator, and Tannel’s fighter leapt forwards despite the protesting groan from its engine. He had them cold, even without a gunner. Missiles away, those he could fire himself, followed by a scything fan of laser fire. Messy explosions flashed ahead, and Tannel permitted himself a grim smile. Four TIEs were blasted to ruin by direct hits, two others fell to splash damage.

The remaining four turned to flee, but Tannel went after them, catching two more and atomising them with volleys from his cannons. But then his proximity alerts were screaming at him, and he looked up to see four Interceptors converging on him. Their guns blazed, snatching the other Spitedragons from the air and flinging them down to earth in flames.

Too fast. Much too fast and nimble for his big, wounded craft. But he could try and take one of them with him. He could spit in the enemy's eye one more time-

A small, arrow-winged fighter came spiralling in behind the Interceptors and blew them out of the sky. It swung as the pilot reoriented it, coming to fly level with Tannel.

His radio hissed and popped loudly, resolving into a voice. Female, all clipped military diction. “Jade Six, do you read me?”

“I read you.”

“Good. Cos I’m fresh out of missiles up here and running low on power. You’re not gonna get another chance to come down with me.”

He blinked. “You’re pulling out?”

“Command is ceding the skies. Our air force is near enough gone anyway.”

“I noticed.”

“Good. Now bring that hulk to ground before it falls apart, unless you want to die up here.”

Part of Tannel was alright with that notion. The notion of ceding the airspace to the enemy, after they’d fought tooth and nail for every inch of it and he’d lost so many of his comrades, rankled with him. But when he looked out over the city, he saw that it would happen whether or not he stayed in the air. The First Order were pouring even more craft into the stratosphere. The defenders wouldn’t even make a dent in that force.

There was a battle still to be fought on the surface. They'd have more of a chance there. And Cylarei was right – his fighter was barely holding together. Even if R4-V8 was still in one piece and carrying out repairs – his readouts weren’t telling – the damage was too extensive.

“Well, Six? This lull’s not going to last.”

He drew a breath. “I hear you. I’m coming down.”

“Then let's not hang about.” The little fighter dipped and made for the spaceport, and Tannel cajoled Jade Six into following.

They descended quickly and passed along one of the canyons created by the towering buildings, taking advantage of the cover they offered and the turbolaser cannons set atop them.

Ahead loomed the mass of the spaceport, its own cannons blazing up at the sky. The airfield was crowded with dozens of fighters, and strewn with no small number of wrecks. Kriff, so many.

“Hey,” came the woman’s voice over the radio. “Give your name.” There was a pause, but Tannel was wrestling again with the link to R4. “Come on wingmate, who am I risking my skin for?”

“Tannel,” he grunted, fighting to keep the joystick level. “Tannel Loskar.”

“Good to meet you Tannel, I go by Cylarei Verest. Now, I'm shunting you my scan feed for the airfield - that's your lodestar.”

His console snapped into blessed clarity. “I see it. Oof, that's coming up fast.”

“You’d better hit the brakes unless you want a much bigger oof. Coming in hard!”

Which was when realised his landing gear wasn’t obeying him. “So it’s gonna be this kind of day,” he growled.

His hands raced over the consoles, forcing the fighter into some semblance of landing mode. Maximum drag, repulsors pushing as hard as he could get them, thrusters dead - actually they seemed to have died on their own. At least that worked in his favour.

No time to think about that now, however. He hit hard enough to jar his bones and tore up a good ten metres of rokcrete as he ground to a halt, swearing all the way.

After a seeming age, the ravaged fighter scraped to a halt and Tannel slumped in his seat, breathing hard. Then he jumped as a fist rapped hard on the armourglass. Cylarei. She turned out to be Chiss, dressed in a uniform he didn’t recognise.

That could wait. He fought his way free of the seatbelt, hitting the release button for the cockpit. It scraped open, catching a little before Cylarei caught it and heaved upwards.

“Kriffing hell, wingmate.” The Chiss woman reached in and hauled him out by the arm. Her fighter had come down rather more lightly, though now she slung a flare into its cockpit to set it ablaze, denying it to the enemy. “If you’d got this thing much more beaten up, I’d have had to cut you out.”

“Never mind me,” he growled, shaking off her hand and hauling himself up the side of the fighter “Is R4-”

And then he saw the smoking wreck of the droid. No way he was salvageable. There was just the stump of a torso. All that was left of the droid they’d paired him with when he was fresh out of the academy. Four years they’d flown and fought together, and this was all that remained of his companion.

Tannel took a deep breath, thumped the hull of his fighter and barked a curse.

Cylarei had waited patiently, but now she spoke up. “The enemy will start bombing this airfield inside fifteen minutes, Tannell. If we want to avenge R4, we’d better get clear.”

Tannel took a deep breath. “I hear you.” He jumped down, and they ran for safety.


	3. Taskforce

Admiral Frantis Griss had command of the _Subjugator_ , and by extension the whole First Order fleet. With the defending flotilla broken, he was now deploying his ships to execute the planetfall operation.

A few squadrons had moved to finish off what was left - individual Star Destroyers and their attendant cruisers and frigates. But the majority were descending into low orbit, flanking the true monsters as they prepared to disgorge their cargo of killers and war machines.

The deck trembled, just slightly, as the _Subjugator_ breached the atmosphere. Griss smiled callously as he thought of the fresh terror which that rumble would strike into the hearts of those below.

Both the Allegiant General and Supreme Leader would take the field. Pryde was already ensconced in an AT-M8 walker, commanding the assault on the curtain wall of the city. Kylo Ren, meanwhile, was addressing his troops.

Naturally, his words carried over the radio to the bridge as well. The bridge crew stiffened as they rang out. “Today brings us to another bastion of the Republic. Another shield of the weak, which you are charged with breaking. And break it you shall, for the Supreme Leader does not permit failure.”

Ren’s armoured boots rang on the deck as he advanced slowly to his shuttle. Three of his Knights prowled behind him, and Death Troopers formed ranks of gleaming black armour to either side.

The first wave of infantry and vehicles were already aboard their transports, prepared for launch, but that didn’t matter. Ren had control of the fleet's audio feed, patched into every commlink. Every soldier and menial would hear his words.

Ren couldn't help but relish the feeling of power he experienced in moments like this. Clad in heavy armour and the fearsome new helmet that went with it. Let his lessers look upon him and tremble. Men like Hux should see him and know that this truly was their Supreme Leader, one who would never suffer any challenge to his rule.

His helmet’s grille leant his voice a strange timbre, mechanically guttural.

“Kerothime is an island of strength amid the decadence of the Republic, but that indolence and weakness has doomed it nonetheless. If the strong permit the weak to gain a hold, they will be dragged down with them. That is the lesson we will teach to the Galaxy with the taking of this world.”

Snoke had given him some lessons in rhetoric during his apprenticeship. Not as extensive as someone like Hux could draw upon, but Ren was capable enough to give a rousing speech.

“Our deeds today are committed in the name of vengeance and the right that our might grants us. Strength is virtue, and no one is stronger than us. We see the weakness of our foes in their base and underhand ploys against us. In the assassination of our Supreme Leader Snoke, they showed it most clearly of all. What response can there be to such treachery as that?”

“Death to the treacherous weaklings!” bellowed Yimur at his side, right on cue.

“Death!” came the answering shout, from every trooper around them.

Ren permitted himself a hooked grin behind his mask. “Death indeed. We will make an example of this world. We will make it bleed and cower, only relenting when it submits to us.”

Perhaps Rey would be surprised to hear this words from Ben Solo, the conflicted warrior who had had such reservations about Starkiller Base. The truth was that Ren had found it necessary to cut out such doubts. If the First Order did not succeed in subjugating the Galaxy now, he would fall with it to the hands of a vengeful populace. If he did not show himself to be committed and deliver the conquests that his generals and admirals yearned for, then it would expose him politically. He still had Hux and his ilk to consider - too useful to dispose of, but a threat that would never go away until he could remove them.

So Ren throttled the compassion inside himself. He halted, raising and clenching his gauntleted hand. “It is the destiny of the Republic to fall, and serve as an example by its weakness. Now, we attack!”

The spaceport, ringed with scores of battered craft, was full of personnel. Once Tannel and Cylarei got inside, they shouldered their way through the press of bodies, trying to find something which resembled their old units. 

“Guess they got the civilians out,” he said. “All I see is troops.”

Cylarei looked around and nodded. “Good. Reckon there’ll be anything left of your lot?” she asked.

“Not of my squadron,” he replied. “Jade plus two others made up a company on the ground, but I don’t see many of those two in here.”

As it turned out, however, someone was looking for them. “Corporal Verest!” rang out from a balcony.

They turned. “Is that Captain Holterum?” Tannel queried, eyebrows raised.

Cylarei nodded. “Yeah.”

“Any idea what he wants with us?”

“Not sure.”

They hurried up the steps to the captain. Holterum was a big Twi’lek, toting a heavy blaster rifle. “Corporal – and Corpsman Loskar, am I correct?”

“Yes sir.”

For a moment, Tannel could see the officer thinking. “Hmm, that’ll work. Both of you, come with me.” He took off at a stride, the two of them trotting to keep up. “I regret to say your companies have been badly reduced already. They’re non-viable as units now.”

“Sir, then why aren’t we just being consolidated?” asked Cylarei.

“I have other things in mind for you. There’s a delicate task, needs a couple helping hands if you’re not spent.”

“Of course, sir. Where do you need us?”

“Ah, well.” The captain’s eyebrow quirked a little. “It’s not my unit you’re being seconded to.”

“It’s mine,” came a low voice behind Tannel and Cylarei.

What they saw when they turned brought them up short. Five figures. Two of them loomed in heavy armour, a Zabrak and a fierce-looking droid. Two women - one human, the other Pantoran, both kitted out like engineers.

But it was the young man stood between them who drew the eye. He wore what looked like Stormtrooper armour, with all the white paint scoured away and the Resistance emblem etched and painted on the chest and shoulder plates. A short command cape hung down his back. He was heavily armed; a blaster rifle over one shoulder, a shock-maul and pistol at his hip.

And there was no mistaking his face, the determined set of his jaw and the fire in his eyes.

Tannel blinked. “You’re… Finn. _The_ Finn.”

In the months since the destruction of Starkiller Base and the Resistance's near-annihilation at Crait, Finn's name had quickly spread. It came up in the stories of a dozen raids and skirmishes as the Resistance clawed their way back to something like their former strength. People whispered it with the same kind of fervour as when they talked about Poe Dameron or Rey of Jakku. This, they said, was a hero who could help restore freedom to the Galaxy.

Finn, the Stormtrooper Who Turned, Phasma’s Doom and the Hero of Torleth, shared an amused look with one of the engineers. “Captain Finn, strictly speaking.” He moved over and shook their hands. “Cylarei and Tannel, right?”

“Yep.”

He smiled, a warm, wry expression. “Well, you know my name. These are Rose Tico, Ki’rii Volo-” he indicated the Pantoran, then the Zabrak and droid “-Nyzar and LM-276.”

Cylarei piped up. “Any chance of...”

That got them a rueful smile from Finn. “Our friend the Jedi? Love to say yes, but Rey’s on a mission elsewhere and this attack came on quicker than we’d expected.” He started moving, signalling for them to follow. “We’ve got forces squadroning up but believe me, with the _Subjugator_ up there we’ve no hope of driving off the First Order.” Holterum, stood behind him, nodded gravely. “I’m here strictly on extraction detail.”

“Extracting whom?” asked Tannel.

“Whom and what,” piped up Rose. “There’s an Incom-Freitek development facility in the city.”

“So you’re here for their blueprints.”

“That and their people. They tipped us off and requested the help.”

The captain coughed quietly before Tannel could voice any kind of objection. “Those designs could give our allies a serious boost if they get clear. At the very least we can’t let the enemy get their hands on them. The Resistance needs operatives who know this city. Marshal Tolhen charged me to find some, and I recommended you two. Prove me right.”

Finn’s day hadn’t started in an ideal manner. He’d slept badly on the way to Kerothime, and had barely had time for his breakfast to go down before he was leaping from a gunship into the pre-dawn atmosphere. Everything about the situation up in orbit had said they were in for a vicious fight just to get clear, and nothing he’d learned since landing had done anything to change that.

He supposed that it did him some good to remember that the _Subjugator_ was up there. It focused the mind, kept him keenly aware of the mission’s constraints. Still, it didn’t help much to dwell on the odds.

He turned his attention to their new companions. “Tannel, Cylarei, you two always been Kerothime Defence?”

The two pilots, hitherto standing to attention, glanced at each other. Enough to confirm Finn’s suspicions that they didn’t know one another much at all.

“Yeah, good six years,” Tannel said. “Signed up for the academy when I was fresh out of college, for want of anything else to do. I had the aptitude, so I stuck with it.” He turned to Cylarei. “I didn’t actually ask you myself yet.”

“I’ve only been onworld a couple months,” the Chiss woman replied, directing her words both to Tannel and Finn. “Was part of a fleet which operated out of Pholtem.”

“I’ve heard of that one,” said Rose. So had Finn. Pholtem had been one of the first worlds to topple. “How’d you end up here?”

“We were on long-range patrol in bandit country, and then one day we found out that Hosnia had been turned to dust and Pholtem had been seized by General Enric Pryde.”

“That bastard again,” Rose muttered. Pryde was every bit as infamous as Hux by now.

Finn kept his eyes on Cylarei. “So the best bet was to fall back.”

“The enemy made it tricky, but we found our way here. Figured this would be as good a place as any to dig in and sit tight.”

“Glad you did,” Tannel said in a low voice. “Without your lot, we might not have held out this long.”

So they already had some camaraderie to build on. Finn found himself smiling at that, despite everything. It couldn’t last long, however – just half a minute later, heavy bangs rang out high above the city. They were like thundercracks, but somehow more percussive.

There was a brief pause, and then: “Hear that?” LM grated. “Something’s coming down.”

“Make that a lot of something!” blurted Ki'rri, her eyes on a patch in the clouds.

Finn raised his binoculars to view the same spot. “Lot of _somethings_.” He let out a long hiss of a breath.

Vast, blocky transports were descending to earth. Finn knew them. He’d seen them in his days as a Stormtrooper, and then on Crait, and he knew full well what they portended. The wrath of the First Order was about to strike in earnest.


	4. Within the Walls

The First Order would have to work for the world’s surrender. Kerothime’s Prime Minister had declared martial law within a day of Hosnian Prime’s destruction, and his government had made good use of that time. The defenders were ready for a fight, even after the terrifying spectacle of their fleet’s destruction.

And they made an impressive show of force, especially their armoured echelons. Beetle-shaped walkers lumbered into position before the curtain wall, and began to discharge sapphire-blue laser volleys at the oncoming First Order forces, swatting TIE Bombers out of the sky. Allegiant General Pryde watched the artillery duel begin from his vantage point, stood in the lead AT-M6.

He had at his command the cream of the First Order armoured echelons, their prowess undisputable and their machines the most powerful that the First Order’s industry could supply. The AT-M6s hauled their hulking forms into range, so vast that they made even the AT-ATs look small and mountain titanic cannons on their hunched shoulders. The scout walkers and tanks which followed in their wake, in comparison, looked like mere ants. The whole ensemble, fit to crush armies under foot and tread, moved according to Pryde’s will, priming their weapons to unleash carnage upon the Republic defenders.

There were plenty of commanders in the First Order who had learned their trade through simulations and theoretical study, and carried that approach over to its practical application. Armitage Hux was one such, preferring to wage war at a distance of kilometres, seeing the battlefield as a luminous sprawl of strategic holographs.

Not so Enric Pryde, who had served under Darth Vader and who’d never forgotten the feeling of potency which his presence had given every soldier under his command. Not to mention the bloody thrill of seeing beings cut down in their thousands, in person, and knowing it was your handiwork. Orchestrating a battle from orbit was all well and good, but to sow death among your foes in this way… nothing was half as delicious as that was to Pryde.

It was one of the things which had ensured his favour with the Supreme Leader, who likewise venerated Lord Vader’s example as a field commander. Along with, of course, tactical and strategic acumen, fanatical devotion to the First Order’s cause and a certain appreciation for what one could achieve with the Dark Side of the Force.

And as if on cue, Kylo Ren’s helmeted visage appeared over the holo-unit. The words were sparse as always. “Allegiant General, I trust you are ready to commence.”

“Within the next minute,” Pryde told him smoothly. “Your will shall be done. The enemy will be crushed.”

“Just as I would expect.” The Supreme Leader’s image cut out.

“Recall the TIE squadrons,” Pryde said. “Our armour will decide this.”

“Aye sir,” replied his commanders. The TIEs withdrew.

The Kerothime forces responded accordingly, training their guns upon the First Order walkers and letting fly. “Let them have their little show of defiance,” he told his gunners, watching the displays register the volleys, the shields taking the strain easily enough so far. “But we must be ready to reply. On my mark, return fire.”

Pryde had always found amusing irony in the designs favoured by the New Republic Army. They had gone back to the Grand Army of old for inspiration, seemingly ignorant of how that army had ultimately subverted its supposed masters and raised up the Emperor to rule over them.

Still, it wouldn't do to underestimate those forces. The Kerothime military fielded walkers which, while a little shorter than an AT-AT, were more heavily armoured and bristled with weaponry. They were heavyset, beetleish machines. Around them, tanks and smaller walkers manoeuvred, bringing their own guns to bear.

The shields of the First Order machines were just beginning to strain. That was enough. “Fire,” Pryde instructed.

Red laser volleys spewed from the AT-M6s. The ground was torn up, the surface becoming a fountain of dust and fragments. Then the trail of destruction reached the first of the Kerothime vehicles, burst their shields and ripped through the armour. Now the clash of war machines began in earnest.

“We’ve seen enough,” Finn said, turning away from the battle beyond the wall. He took a step and looked back. Cylarei and Tannell still had their eyes on the walkers. “Come on!”

“Captain says move!” Nyzar boomed, tapping the flat of his sword against a metal rail. That broke the spell, and they hurried on, down a staircase which took them to street level.

“How long do you think they’ve got?” Tannell asked, between breaths.

Finn thought, furrowing his brow. “With those numbers, we’re talking fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.” Either way, the grim implication of Tannell’s question was right – that engagement was only going to go the way of the First Order.

As it turned out, the duration of the armour engagement landed right in the middle of Finn’s predicted range. Seventeen minutes and fifty-one seconds saw the Kerothime machines reduced to smouldering wreckage, for the loss of one AT-M6, three AT-ATs and eight AT-STs, in addition to ten more of various classes damaged.

Pryde considered that an acceptable price to pay, considering the enemy’s not inconsiderable strength. The Kerothime echelons had thrown all their might at the invaders and fought in exemplary fashion, but despite their valour of guile, they had been annihilated. The defending walkers were shattered and gored, their vanquishers striding imperiously through the wreckage to the curtain wall.

Now, Pryde turned to his comms officer. “Is the ram-cannon ready?” he asked.

The gates before them were so thick that they might as well have been part of the wall itself. It was made of solid adamantium and protected by shields would scorn even the guns of the First Order force. But it was precisely for situations like this that the First Order had created ram-canons, miniaturising the hyperlaser technology of the Death Stars to create a siege engine of surpassing power.

“Affirmative!” was the reply.

“Then clear the way. Give the operators their signal to begin, and commence bombardment of the wall.”

Pryde’s walkers parted along the cannon’s line of fire, turned their guns to the wall and let fly. The shields over the gate and wall rippled under their attack, but didn’t weaken yet. Pryde imagined that the defenders, watching the readouts in their bunkers, were starting to hope.

He liked to think they were. It made the thought of their imminent despair so much more delicious.

A flickering orange glow built from the ram-cannon, kicking up the lightest debris from the ground. The gate was illuminated, even as the walkers stepped up their bombardment of the wall and the deflector shields trembled more violently.

Pryde allowed himself one luxuriant sigh. Then the cannon fired.

The fiery beam sped down the fiery orange track, so smoothly and unstoppably that its course seemed almost preordained to Pryde. Then it struck, and molten stone, metal and ferrocrete fountained into the air.

The impact shook the very foundations of the city.

Down in the streets, crowded with soldiers, Finn and his team heard the impact and saw the flash of orange which lit the walls. They turned to watch the plume of fire and debris climbing skywards, and heard screams ring out.

“The hell was that?” Tannell asked, baring his teeth. The curtain wall had always seemed impregnable to him. He could hardly imagine the weapon that could breach it, and yet there was no denying the evidence of his eyes.

Rose took a hissing breath through her teeth. “That was the wall being breached. Everything just got a bit more urgent.”

“And not just because of the wall,” Finn added. “Look further up.”

Ki’rii swore. And no wonder. A long-winged shuttle had swept into view, flocked by Stormtrooper transports and TIE Fighters. But even alone, it would’ve been unmistakable. There was hardly a being in the Galaxy who wouldn’t recognise it – and what it portended.

A chill stole up on him.

“Is that…” Cylarei’s question tailed off.

Finn nodded grimly. “Kylo Ren himself.” He started running, Nyzar and LM keeping pace with him already and Ki’rii and Rose quickly followed. “Come on!”

The ram-cannon had ripped through anything between it and the gaping chasm in the wall, scouring the ground to naked rock, which glowed with heat. To either side of its passage, the wreckage of the Kerothime machines lay in charred heaps.

The First Order machines stood proud over the ruin of their enemies, wreathed in smoke as their searchlights pierced the gloom. The AT-M6s and AT-ATs were simply too vast to manoeuvre inside the walls, but Pryde’s next move was already unfolding. The soldiers carried about the walkers had begun to deploy, rappelling down and falling immediately into formation. These would form the bulk of the first wave, ready to enter the city behind the tanks and smaller walkers.

No one imagined that the defenders were about to give up. Kerothime’s fortifications wouldn’t stop at the walls, and its soldiers knew the ground they would be fighting over. But no matter. This was the kind of brutal war in which the Stormtrooper legions were most at home, storming cities block by block and scouring them of all defenders.

All they needed now was the tip of their spear, and with perfect timing, here it came. Above them, the air was split by the whir and growl of heavy turbines and retros, as Kylo Ren’s shuttle swept in with its escort of hulking Scythe gunships. The Supreme Leader and his elite would be the first across the threshold.

“Supreme Leader,” Pryde said, feeling a cruel smile tug at his lips. “Your red carpet is prepared.”


	5. Enter the Supreme Leader

The fall of the main gate was only the biggest incursion into the city. First Order troops swept into the city by gunship, overwhelming the perimeter defences with sheer, brutal force.

Kerothime soldiers raced to contest every breach and support their comrades, but thousands of the enemy were already within the walls. The battle soon became a dozen smaller engagements, and where they raged the night was shredded by lasers, plasma and fire.

Raider Company Omega led the attack on the Prestige District, a cascade of rapid attacks which overwhelmed the defenders in less than an hour. Torlun Ren moved among them, singling out officers and dispatching them with bursts from his handcannon or the blazing edge of his scimitar.

Yimur and Gwaelyn Ren led a gunship attack on the southern industrial zone, ferried in by the infamous gunship _Knife Nine_. They swept the defenders and emplacements from the walls, stormed the blockhouses and killed every soldier they found.

The rest of the Knights accompanied their master through the breach made by Pryde and his walkers, stalking into the city in the wake of repulsortanks and a company of Death Troopers. As always, Ren’s elite 66th Legion surrounded them, a host of grim killers clad in glossy black armour and wielding the deadliest weapons the First Order could supply. Heavy assault units, Flametroopers, Raiders – all had a place in the 66th.

At Ren’s side, the Death Troopers’ shields locked into place and their vibro-pikes jutted viciously from the shield wall. Through his helmet’s lenses, the Supreme Leader regarded the Gateway District, already aflame and carpeted with the bodies of Kerothime soldiers.

A major approached, kneeling before him. “Supreme Leader, the enemy have pulled back, guarding five key thoroughfares.” He activated a holomap, illustrating the defenders’ positions and the First Order’s objectives. Ren took a moment to scrutinise it, noting the Kerothime forces’ fallback positions. The spaceport, seven kilometres distant, loomed largest, but closer to hand lay the Lorith Redoubt. It was the main military base in the city, and likely the site where they would face the most opposition. “Where would you have us attack first?”

“The fortress,” he told the officer. “We take that, we can flood the city with our divisions. Detach two armoured companies to support Yimur and Gwaelyn, targeting Mothma Plaza. All other considerations are secondary.” He raised his head and roared to his soldiers. “Move out!”

Rose’s commlink buzzed, and she stopped running, ducking behind a pillar. Finn and the others saw and came skidding to a halt.

“What is it, Rose?” Finn asked.

She pulled out the commlink and activated it. “Kerothime high command, apparently.” A grizzled man who must be in his sixties appeared in flickering blue. “Marshal Tolhen.”

The others gathered around, Ki’rii and LM facing outwards and scanning for enemies.

“I’ll dispense with the honorifics,” the Marshal replied. “Kylo Ren’s forces are inside the city. We’re evacuating what we can, but they’ve hit harder and faster than we’d reckoned with. As such, I’m implementing our Clawhold Protocol.”

“Which means?” Finn prompted.

“Most of our people are about to go underground. We have disguised bunkers throughout the city, designed for this. Troops rerouting there will hunker down, let the enemy roll over them, and then break cover. Should buy you some time and keep Incom-Freitek secure for the moment, but only if you get clear of the first wave. Your borrowed operatives should be able to help with that. That all clear?”

“Aye,” Finn said. “We’ll get to it. Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your hands.”

“Ain’t that a fact,” growled the marshal. He saluted and vanished.

Finn gritted his teeth, and turned to Tannel and Cylarei. “So, we’re headed underground?”

Tannel nodded. “There’s a maglev network under the surface, and a station just a few blocks from here.” He pointed with his blaster and started walking again. “We take that, we’ll be able to keep moving toward the I-F installation.”

They pounded up the thoroughfares, skirting vehicles as they went. There were dozens now; tanks regrouping for the next fight and commandeered transports ferrying troops back from the embattled districts. _They must be setting up a cordon near the station. Which means we’re right in Ren’s way._

Tannel recognised the look Finn shot him. “Station’s just off Mothma Square. Must be where they’re making a stand.”

As they made their way up the roads, they started to see spotlights, illuminating kill-zones for the defenders. Nearer still, and they spied vehicles and serried ranks of Kerothime soldiers.

The enemy weren’t far behind either. A spattering of plasma bolts came out of the distance, followed by Scout Troopers on speeder bikes. Finn dropped, firing off a flurry which caught one and sent it ploughing into a wall. Then he ducked into cover as LM unslung his heavy cannon, sweeping the oncoming squad with searing blue bolts. One bike slowed, two others exploded and another trooper was blown clean out of his saddle.

Finn took aim, but Tannel and Cylarei were ahead of him. A couple of shots from them both put paid to the last outrider.

“Nice shooting,” Ki’rii remarked. “You two were a good pick.”

“Hold that thought,” Rose cautioned, moving over to Finn. “Think they made us before we took them out?”

“Hard to say,” he said. The troopers could easily have radioed back to their commanders if they knew who they were shooting at. Hopefully the darkness would serve to obscure them. “Then again, with the defenders massing here, might not matter.” He stared back down the street. There were lights in the distance now and a rumble of engines, getting closer. First Order tanks and walkers. “Move!”

They advanced another fifty metres before someone was shouting at them from the line of Kerothime tanks. “Halt! Halt and identify yourselves!”

Finn slowed to a march and raised a hand, blaster pointed down. “Resistance!”

But now the sound of oncoming enemy vehicles was loud enough that his words were lost to the soldiers. “What?”

Now Finn halted, just a few metres short of the line and close enough to see eyes glinting under helmets. “We’re Resistance!” he bellowed. He took a step closer, only for a burly soldier to surge out of a tank’s shadow and bear him clean off his feet. Suddenly his field of vision was dominated by the black maw of a blaster rifle, and the whine of building power filled his ears even over the building roar.

“Who the hell are you?” the soldier demanded.

Nyzar was yelling, Rose and Ki’rii were shouting too. “Hold!” Finn cried. With one hand he beat on his chestplate, right on the Resistance raptor. “Damnit man, use your eyes! We’re Resistance!”

The blaster pulled back, and it became apparent that they were surrounded by soldiers. The same man still stood over him, fingers tapping on the weapon.

“Resistance, huh?”

Accepting a helping hand from Nyzar, Finn got to his feet. His gaze didn't waver from the man. “That’s right.”

The soldier stared at their little squad. He looked no less confused, and possibly angrier than he had been before. “Then where the kriff are the rest of you?”

Finn paused for a moment, trying to frame a response which wouldn’t seem woefully insufficient. He could try to talk about how Kerothime had been surrounded, about how it couldn’t be held. He could point to how ravaged the Resistance’s numbers had been, and how they couldn’t afford to engage the First Order head on. He could say that the only way to get back at the tyrants in the future was to do this now, to limit themselves to rescue and retrieval missions.

But not one would of that would help the soldier whose world was about to be put under the First Order’s boot.

As it was, he was spared by the booming voice of a captain. “Sergeant, get your men back in line! These operatives have clearance and we don’t have time to accost them. Captain,” he addressed Finn. “My apologies.”

“Don’t worry,” Finn said, dusting himself off.

“We’re heading for Mothma Square Station,” Rose broke in, and Finn could see the officer making the calculations.

The officer nodded, clearly intuiting their plan. “Get behind us and tack right. Oh, and blow the inner passage once you’re in the tunnels proper.”

“You sure?” Finn asked.

“Our orders were to make a stand, Captain. There was no word of retreating further.”

A missile thrummed through the air a hundred metres away, glancing off a tank. Then another screamed above their heads and struck a walker, ripping it apart.

“Best be on your way!” roared the officer as the defenders’ guns opened up. “Light ‘em up, boys, light ‘em up!”

Finn’s squad didn’t argue. Instead they raced through the gaps between squads, dodging round vehicles and field artillery. Behind them and then to their right as they rounded the corner, the full cacophony of battle sounded.

The station entrance was ahead, lit sporadically by adjacent gunfire.

“Charges?” Ki’rii shouted to Finn.

“Not yet!” he called back. “Only at the inner entrance.” There would be other outer portals. His urban warfare training had gone into detail on this. They reached the staircases to the tunnels, and he shouted “Set ‘em now!”

Ki’rii raced to the far wall of the descending passage, pulling out a pair of explosive charges and fixing them to the rokcrete. On the other side, Finn did the same. He glanced behind him – despite the shelter of the building, the sounds of fighting had grown louder, and the strobing flash of lasers came with them.

The rest had already raced down the stairs; Finn and Ki’rii followed.

Stormtroopers voices audible now as they reached the bottom. Finn jabbed a finger at Ki’rii. “Blow the charges!”

Ki’rii hit the detonator, and the booms rang out above. Then the dust came billowing out behind them, swallowing them.

Finn had flattened himself against the wall, just round the corner. As the dust settled, he lit the torches on his chestplate and helmet, before tentatively checking the way they’d come. A pile of rubble blocked the passage. There was no way back, but no one would be coming after them that way. With any luck, the First Order would put it down to damage caused in the engagement.

“You’ve outdone yourself, Ki’rii,” Rose said quietly behind him.

Finn gave her a little smile before he took a head count. “Second that. Everyone alright? Good. We move on – my nav unit says we take the Liberty Line – and stay sharp.”

They moved at a fast walk down to the platform, easing around a stationary train to lower themselves onto the railbed. The darkness ahead was hardly inviting, but into the tunnel they ventured, and the noise from above was reduced to the rumbling of impacts through the ceiling.

“Hmm,” grunted Nyzar. “Like being back in the cells, hearing the crowd baying in the arena above. Knowing you’ll be out there again soon enough.”

“Always the cheeriest thoughts, you have,” LM admonished his old comrade. His eyes glowed a soft blue, though they flicked back soon enough to the fierce orange he normally showed in battle.

“Here’s hoping our friends on the surface hold long enough,” Cylarei said behind Finn. She had her pistol in one hand. The other was tight on the hilt of her vibro-sword.

To his right, Tannel half-growled, half-muttered in what sounded like agreement. Finn turned fractionally to the Bothan, keenly aware that those troops fighting and dying on the surface were Tannel’s comrades. Secondment or not, that had to sting. “Say, Tannel. What your man up there said is still rattling around my head. Guess you might’ve been thinking something similar.”

“Not too much,” Tannel replied, only glancing at him. “With the way things were going, not least with the troops who’ve come from other worlds-” and here he indicated Cylarei “-I figured our odds of being where it stops were pretty low, even before the battle started.”

“I think we knew everything we needed to know once the _Subjugator_ appeared overhead,” Cylarei drawled, but regret was audible in her voice. “Helping you is the biggest difference we can make.” She grimaced slightly, and her shoulders sagged just a little. “Still, hurts to realise that. Kerothime’s been good to me.”

Rose put a hand on the Chiss woman’s shoulder. “Well, there’s still a Galaxy out there to fight for, and if we get those designs then that’ll give us a better chance in the war. And in time, we’ll come back here and prise the First Order’s hands off this world.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Finn smiled. He lit the torch on his blaster. “But for the moment we’ve gotta go. Rapid march now.”

“You mean jogging?” Ki’rii ventured. Finn gave her a look. “Fair enough, Captain. Jogging it is.”


	6. Purgation

The battle inside the city had quickly devolved into a vicious patchwork of actions, Kylo Ren ordering his commanders to embark on a strategy of defeat in detail. While the first line pinned the holdouts in place, divisions gathered together and struck at bunkers and command nodes. It was surgical brutality.

Nowhere was that ethos more clearly embodied than where Ren himself stalked and fought. With the armoured lines at Mothma Square broken, he stormed into the midst of their soldiers at the head of a Purge Trooper phalanx, Knights at his side.

Enemy fire snapped through the air, many of the defenders training their guns on him to the exclusion of all else. It mattered not. His armour was forged from Beskar, finely wrought and fitted with mag-coils which made it astoundingly resistant to attack. And few shots even managed a glancing hit – his lightsaber moved constantly, deflecting bolts with its crimson blade and sending them back into the press of Kerothime soldiers. The Knights, with their master-forged vibro-blades, did the same. There were already cries of terror rising from the ranks of the enemy.

Then the Knights were among the defenders, and the screaming began in earnest. Ren’s saber wheeled in great, sizzling arcs, cleaving through armour in eruptions of sparks. His warriors followed, and behind them came the hammer-blow of the Purge Troopers’ charge, smashing down soldiers with their shields and stabbing mercilessly with their vibro-pikes.

The defenders fought back valiantly, holding ground in spite of their terror, but the First Order assault was remorseless. More troopers raced up to vantage points, pouring fire into the mass of defenders. AT-ST and UA-TT walkers stalked between the wrecks and on the flanks, the invaders’ tanks spread out to flank the defenders.

As Ren tore up the centre and split the enemy formation, so two were the Kerothime forces boxed in and crushed. To their credit, they fought to the last, but then the First Order were never going to give them the option of surrendering. There was a message to be sent to their comrades, after all.

Ren could see the next stage of the battleground looming ahead – Lorith Redoubt, its cannons still alight, warding off strafing TIE craft. Perhaps this would serve to break their resolve. Or perhaps not. It mattered little enough to Ren; he was in a killing mood.

He detected the keening of vibroblades, close. _Good. A welcome challenge._ The soldiers ahead of him parted, letting through members of the city guard in silver and blue armour, bearing shields and elegant, curved axes. Ren roared and leapt to meet them, bringing his saber down hard enough to sweep one soldier off his feet. He caught one descending axe with the Force while he reversed his sword and plunged it into the downed man’s chest. Then he swung upwards, a brutal backhand swing that carved his enemy open.

Next he wheeled around and attacked, taking another soldier’s head off with a brutal swing. Two more came at him; he dispensed with them both in as many seconds. The Knights had engaged the rest, the clash seething around Ren as he cut and thrust his way through the melee.

Nothing could touch him, no one could even hinder him. He was too fast, too strong. With the dark energy of the Ren flowing in his veins, he ripped through his opponents like wildfire.

Either side of him, his troopers poured fire into the ranks of the defenders. In a minute or less, the killing was done.

Now Ren had a moment to take stock, he noted a variety of uniforms on the corpses around him. He saw the colour and insignia of worlds besides Kerothime, escapees of other battles. That was a surprise initially, but a welcome one. The Supreme Leader’s enemies could run, but it was only a matter of time before they were eradicated.

“Supreme Leader,” a Purge Trooper sergeant grated. “The area is secure.”

“Then we regroup and move out. Lorith Redoubt is next.”

Remorselessly, the First Order elite advanced. They left only wreckage and the fallen in their wake.

Thirty minutes into their journey through the tunnels, Finn and his team found the sounds of battle receding, fading into the distance. The quiet was no comfort however; it meant that Kylo Ren’s forces had broken the defences at Mothma Square and pressed deeper into the city. Lorith Redoubt, if it wasn’t already besieged by the invaders, would be next in the line of fire.

Pressing on, they passed small knots of people taking refuge from the fighting, huddling in the dark around little fires or clusters of torchlight. Finn opted not to get too close. That was both to avoid any delay, and to spare the civilians false hope.

The words of the soldier at Mothma Square still reverberated in his mind, and they stung. He could recite all the reasons why they couldn’t deploy at full strength here, why it would be futile to do so, why Rey was occupied elsewhere. But it didn’t do anything for his spirits.

They pressed on until they reached what Tannel said was the right station, and headed up into the complex. Nearing the surface, Finn’s commlink chirped. He nodded to the others, who took up positions toward the exit. The glowing blue image of Major Rulm blinked into being in his palm.

“Captain Finn, that radio silence had me worried. Your team still in one piece?”

“Yeah, but I can’t say the same for the city. Kylo Ren’s here, like you expected. The 66th Legion are in the city.”

Rulm had his hands on his hips. As far as Finn could tell with the hologram, his friend’s eyes were dark. “As bad as we feared, then?”

“Worse. But we’re close. If you can reach us within the next hour, we should have the Incom-Freitek people and the designs, ready to pull out.”

“Can do,” Rulm smiled, and the expression was a welcome reassurance. “I’ve been in touch with Kerothime Defence while you were below. They’ll hold back their flyers’ evacuation as long as possible, so you should have safety in numbers when you take off.”

“And cover from Blue Squadron?”

The major gave a satisfied smile. “Blue, Silver and Violet, lad. Just keep yourselves alive ‘til then.”

“Aye sir.” Finn saluted. Rulm’s image winked out, and Finn addressed his squad. “You heard him, guys. “That’s our way out of this.”

“We’re gonna be behind the enemy advance now,” LM-276 said.

“Doesn’t mean we can let our guard down. Not in the slightest – enemy units will still be combing the city for any stragglers.”

“Good,” Nyzar rumbled. “Then we can give them the fight they’re looking for. Let’s make the enemy hurt.”

Rose gently chided him. “Only if it doesn’t mess with the mission, right Nyzar?”

For a second he looked a little mutinous, but he demurred. “Alright.”

“Good,” Finn said. “We’re heading north now, guys. Keep it tight.”

They emerged into a hellscape of fire and smoke. The First Order had ground through all the resistance in their path and more than a few , leaving bodies and wreckage in their wake. The black clouds now obscured the sky and the tallest buildings, except for where Lorith Redoubt and the spaceport’s turrets still blazed away. The fortress’ walls were illuminated by gunfire from below. That must be where the main battle was now.

They moved like shadows against the firelight, flitting from block to block. At least they weren’t short of cover, and Finn was satisfied to see First Order vehicles among the wrecks. Kerothime was still kicking.

However, there were also still civilians caught out in the open, those who hadn’t made it to a refuge or a transport before the First Order smashed through the defences. The squad rounded the corner to find Stormtroopers rounding up a group of about twenty, the civilians on the ground, blasters levelled at them. Next to Finn, Tannel made a low, visceral noise.

“Hold,” Finn hissed to him. He motioned to the others. “Pick your targets.” They had to do this swiftly, and with precision. He holstered his blaster rifle on his back, and went for his pistol and shock-baton. “LM, Nyzar, we’re gonna get in close. Rose, count us down.”

Rose held up three fingers. Finn rolled his shoulders, fingers flexing on the hilt of the baton. Rose began her countdown. _Three. Two. One…_

 _Go._ The three warriors burst from cover without a word and raced towards the Stormtroopers. Behind them the others fired, and the shots snapped past them. Troopers dropped, and Finn fired off a quick burst which took another down.

The Stormtroopers’ minds weren’t on the civilians at all now. They fired at Finn, Nyzar and LM, but they wove through the volley and struck hard enough to shatter armour and send the enemy flying like broken dolls.

It took less than half a minute, leaving him to regard the startled civilians. “Get into the underground!” he shouted, pointing back the way they’d come. “Go!” His squad raced on.

“Not gonna lie,” Tannel said as they went. “That feels a little better now.”

Finn felt much the same.

There was worse ahead, however. As they penetrated more ravaged districts, they caught their first glimpses of the First Order units set to root out the remnants of defending forces.

Finn remembered the kind of soldiers who were assigned these duties. The First Order instilled a brutal mindset as a matter of course, but actively hunting down the wounded and defenceless took… that took exceptional callousness. The personnel who fit that exacting criteria took a perverse pride in it. They were the ones who exemplified the terror which the Galaxy should know when they thought of the First Order. They were the punishment for every world which had presumed to throw off the yoke of the Empire.

Now there was one such unit right ahead of them. A squad of Flametroopers, pouring fire into broken vehicles to scour out any survivors. There was a hand sticking out of another charred vehicle close by, a blackened claw.

Finn ground his teeth, feeling a fire of his own ignite in his heart. The others didn’t even need to hear him say anything. They knew what was about to happen just by looking at him.

He’d never got on with any of the Flametroopers during his youth. Equally, they’d never had time for him. The First Order wanted all their soldiers ruthless, and the Flametroopers were especially so. They had to be quite comfortable inflicting slow, agonising deaths as a matter of course. If they weren’t callous when they started, they sure would be after a few battles.

Finn wasn’t going to enjoy what he was about to do, but it would be satisfying.

He took careful aim, crouching down just a little and sighting down his blaster rifle, and fired twice. The lead Flametrooper’s fuel packs blew out with concussive violence, a fiery one-two punch. The unfortunate target was cored by the explosion, a gaping, fuming hole where most of his ribcage had been. Another’s pack erupted in the same manner. His squadmates were blasted unceremoniously away.

Two, when they landed, were still conscious enough to respond. One rolled to face the direction of the shots and raise a blaster pistol. That got him a shot to the chest from Cylarei. Tannel saw the other go for a grenade and shot that. The explosion took care of the final trooper.

Finn was already moving away, hastening down a side alley. He’d already learned to trust their aim.

“That was some precision,” Tannel murmured behind him.

“Ditched the indoctrination,” he said. “Kept the training.”

“You good?” Rose piped up. She’d seen his grimace before the others had.

Finn’s reply was slow in coming. “The method gets easier, the act doesn’t.”

He’d have said more, but then something impinged on his hearing. Screaming, coming from a little way to their left. Slightly off the fastest path to the facility.

“Hear that?” Tannel said. “That’s a child.”

Finn thought for a moment, and weighed his priorities, the precious minutes. Then he weighed the demands of his conscience. “Come on!”

It was a boy. Maybe six or seven years old, cowering behind an upturned civilian speeder, curled in on himself. His clothes blackened and ragged, his face smudged. He looked up and sprang to his feet at their approach.

Finn came to a halt. “Hey there, pal,” he said. “What you doing there?”

The child regarded him blankly.

“C’mon little guy, just wanna help-” The boy broke into a run, away from them. “Damnit. Kid, hold up!” Finn tore after him, leaving the others behind.

The boy had almost reached the next street when a Stormtrooper swerved into view – no, a Riot Trooper, baton in one hand and blaster in the other. The boy froze in terror. “Got civilians. No, enemy combatants!”

Finn raised his blaster, but another trooper rounded the corner and shot it out of his hands. Then he switched back to cover Finn, aimed centre-mass. Finn froze, hand on the grip of his shock-baton but not quick enough to draw it. The sergeant did the same - only his maul was already in his hand.

Finn tensed. The trooper’s pistol whined. Finn’s own pistol was at his belt. He could take one, he was sure of that. To drop both of them would take a small miracle.

The pistol flew from the sergeant’s hand, yanked away as if on an invisible tether, straight to-

The little boy’s hand. A terrified boy, all on his own, helpless in the face of the Stormtrooper.

And, as he’d just demonstrated, Force-sensitive.

The lead trooper looked from Finn to the boy, and back. Finn tightened his grip on the baton, feeling the instants stretching out…

Finn drew his pistol and shock-baton. He fired, taking out the grunt. And then he lunged into melee range. He was dimly aware of other Stormtroopers emerging, but right now, only one enemy mattered - the one threatening the boy.

With one arm he swept the boy up, the other raising the maul to deflect his opponent’s. The two weapons crackled ferociously against each other. Then he thrust, struck again and battered the trooper to the ground. A wordless war cry rang from his throat as the other troopers came for him.

“Pick –” he fended off the first flurry of blows “– on – someone – your – own –” he pivoted and smashed his maul into the nearest trooper’s chest “– _size!_ ” The trooper flew backwards into a wall.

Blaster bolts from his squad caught the rest and dropped them. Finn let out a deep sigh of relief, turning to thank his team. Rose looked from him to the boy and back again, a troubled frown crossing her face – but only momentarily. She nodded to him, and smiled.

Somehow, that was enough to kindle a smile on Finn’s face as well.

Then, through the smoke behind them, he saw movement. He took a step forward. The others caught the look in his eyes, the change in his posture, and pivoted as something massive loomed out of the smog. No, make that someone. This trooper was huge, almost as big as Nyzar and bulked out by heavy, jet-black armour. In his hand was a heavy shock maul as long as Finn’s torso. The First Order symbol was painted on his chestplate in red, along with a numeral on his shoulder. Sixty-Six.

So now, Finn thought, he knew just what a Purge Trooper looked like up close.


	7. Shatter

Lurching into motion like a suit of armour given life, almost like a combat droid, the Purge Trooper came at them as four more appeared from the smoke. LM and Nyzar charged to meet the latter, but they’d never reach him in time. Finn roared, hefting his maul in a doomed effort to meet the attack.

The clash of metal rang through the square, overlaid by the shriek of a vibro-weapon making contact. The maul went wide, driven by Tannel’s sword. The giant growled in anger and swung at the Bothan, but Cylarei darted in behind him and drove her sword through his spine. The Purge Trooper howled in pain.

_Ha. So there’s something human under the armour after all._

The boy turned his head but Finn covered the boy’s eyes as Cylarei ripped the sword free and the Purge Trooper collapsed. Tannel stepped in and took the helmeted head off with a single swing.

Finn set the kid down as quickly as he dared, seeing the other Death Troopers charge. “Rose, Ki’rii, watch him!” he barked as he broke into a run of his own, Tannel and Cylarei falling into step with him.

Nyzar and LM were already trading blows with the Purge Troopers. Nonetheless, Finn’s target spotted him coming and pivoted to face him, catching the blow on his heavy shield and stabbing with a vibro-spear. Finn darted to the side, hearing the clash as Tannel and Cylarei joined the fight.

His baton rang against the shield again, then he deflected another stab. The trooper lunged with his shield, a blow that would have probably broken bones and put him flat on the ground. But Finn sidestepped again, leapt and brought his weapon crashing down on the back of the heavy helmet. The Purge Trooper staggered, and Finn struck again, whirling the baton to come down with even more force. That put paid to his opponent.

Three Troopers remained on their feet. The others had fallen, their armour carved open in several places. Finn went to intervene, but one of the enemy was already coming at him.

Now there wasn’t time to get clear. Finn managed to spin away and dodge the spear, but the shield struck his shoulder with a ringing impact, hard enough to jar it. Finn landed hard on the rokcrete, rolling over to find the Purge Trooper coming for him, spear raised and angled at his chest.

“Traitor!” he bellowed, a booming mechanical roar. He was only halted by a fierce volley of shots which hammered into his black armour, leaving craters which glowed an angry orange-red. He snarled in pain and anger, moving his shield into place to weather the onslaught.

“Finn!” suddenly Rose was with him, pulling him up. With an effort, Finn got to his feet while Rose and Ki’rii kept shooting.

The Purge Trooper was still on his feet, still coming at them – but he hadn’t seen LM. Now the droid was behind him, bringing his axe down in a brutal, crunching blow that bit deep into the trooper’s shoulder and dropped him to his knees. Another chop finished him.

By then Tannel, Nyzar and Cylarei had felled another Purge Trooper, and all three surrounded their last opponent. The end came swiftly.

Finn let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding in. “Thanks Rose,” he said, hugging her tight and trying to ignore the flare of pain in his shoulder.

The two former gladiators approached him now, their armour rather more battered now. Evidently they’d taken the brunt of fighting the other troopers. There was the bare metal of cuts and gouges showing through the Resistance green and gunmetal, and Nyzar was bleeding from a gash in his left shoulder. “Good fighting,” Nyzar rumbled to Cylarei and Tannel.

LM was more concerned with the fallen enemy. “The black Sixty-Sixth,” he said, turning one armoured body over with his foot. “Brutal bastards, but now we know we can take them.”

“Not without taking a hit or two,” Cylarei responded, nodding to Nyzar’s wounded shoulder. “How are either of you two still standing after that?”

Nyzar rapped his armoured knuckles against his chestplate. “Ultrachrome warplate, lass. That, and years in the arena.”

Finn, for all that he was impressed. was less elated. Those were more minutes gone now, and he’d already let himself get off course. If one of those troopers had got even a word in on his radio before being felled, that meant the First Order knew about them. “Everyone intact?” he called.

Shouts of assent answered him. He did a quick head-count all the same. Everyone was in one piece.

“Good. Now the enemy probably know we’re headed, we need to sprint the rest of the way and get out of here.” He turned back to Ki’rii and the boy – it looked like she’d had a hand over his eyes – crouching down in front of the child to address him. “Hey little man, what’s your name?” He took care to soften his tone.

It took a moment for the kid to find his tongue. “Dade.”

“Dade, huh? I like that. Solid name.” Finn put his fingers to the Resistance emblem on his chestplate. “I’m Finn, Captain Finn of the Resistance. Where are your folks, Dade?”

“They’re gone,” Dade said, the words no more than a whisper. The tears were already starting from his eyes.

“Then we’ll look after you,” Rose said. The words came without thinking, and she gave Finn a slightly panicked look.

He met that with a nod. “We _are_ here on a rescue mission, after all,” he smiled at her and the boy. “So best you come with us, Dade. We’ll get you out of here. Nyzar!”

“Captain?”

“I need you to give our little friend here a piggyback. Dade-” he pointed to Nyzar’s broad shoulders, and helped the boy up “-the buckles here, grip those. That’s good. Now hang on tight. Tannel, Cylarei,” he called, turning. “Which way from here?”

Cylarei stepped up, red eyes narrowing as she scanned the area. Then she pointed. “I think Sullust Avenue and then Liberty Way. Tannel, that sound right to you.”

“Yeah,” Tannel said, shaking himself to dislodge the worst of the dirt.

“Then lead on,” Finn told him.

They ran, pounding up the pavement, toward the Incom-Freitek facility. The objective was close now, but they had a delay to make up for.

Lorith Redoubt was taken. Ren’s main force had assaulted it remorselessly, abetted by the detachment under Yimur and Gwaelyn Ren. Not a single soldier had survived, and only a handful of civilian staff. Those were now in shackles.

Shattered glass crunched under Kylo Ren’s boots as he and his Knights drew back to their command transport. The tactical holos were already laid out, and in this case they only served to confirm what he already knew. The few Kerothime units who’d escaped the Redoubt would be falling back across the spaceport, braving the heavily bombed airfields.

Ren and his divisions would follow shortly. The spaceport was the fulcrum. Once it was taken, the battle would be over. The defenders knew it too, and were gathering all their strength there. Not that it would be enough. All was going exactly as projected…

“Supreme Leader!”

Ren turned. A captain was sprinting frantically across the courtyard towards him. He shouldered his way through a squad of Stormtroopers, eyes still on Ren, but didn’t make it any further before Krobakh interceded. He grabbed the officer by the throat and hoisted him off his feet.

Still the man struggled, even as his face began to purple. “Please,” he begged, clawing feebly at Krobakh’s wrist, his eyes still on Kylo. “Urgent – news…”

“Set him down,” Ren ordered. Krobakh obeyed immediately, though he didn’t so much set the man back down as drop him. The captain recovered quickly, kneeling at Ren’s feet. “Report.”

It took a few deep breaths first before the captain managed to speak. “Supreme Leader, a purgation unit reported contact with enemy elements in the Tanacine District and was destroyed. A Purge Trooper squad moved to intercept, and…”

“And?” Ren hissed. Then he growled, the word emerging from his helmet grille as a grinding demand. “ _And?_ ”

At least the man succeeded in not whimpering. “Destroyed in turn, Lord. No survivors.”

“Describe the manner of their deaths,” Yimur ordered coldly, moving close so the tip of his sword was just within the man’s vision. “How were they killed?”

“There was no one method. We found damage by blasters, explosives, vibroblades and shock-weapons.”

Yimur’s tone only became icier. “And of the enemy? How many of them did you find?”

“The enemy? None, at least no corpses we could be sure were involved in the struggle…”

Ren had heard enough. Later, he would remember to order that this officer be commended, for keeping a level head under severe pressure. For now, though, his mind was otherwise occupied.

He stepped away, eyes turning to the north. The Tanacine District lay over there. “Then the Resistance are in the city. Not many of them, but they are here.”

The Knights looked at him warily. “It might have been native soldiers,” Yimur ventured. “Given the right opportunity.”

“To kill a full squad of Purge Troopers?” Ren barked. “With no losses in return?” He shook his helmeted head. “We’re dealing with Resistance commandos here.” He paused, the fingers of his sword hand flexing as he thought. “I don’t sense any trace of… _her_. No, she’s not here.” If Rey were fighting in the city, he was certain that he would feel it. There would be some flicker of the bond Snoke had used to bridge their minds.

Yimur regarded him warily through the lenses of his own helmet, and said what his master was thinking. “Then this is most likely the Traitor.”

_The Traitor_. The _Traitor._ So many theoretical candidates for that moniker, and yet only one who truly fit. There were those who were schooled and raised by the First Order to serve it in politics, war and commerce who nonetheless defected or fled its constraints, true. But there was only one who, among the vaunted Stormtrooper Legions, the new breed raised from birth to match the fealty and skill of the old clone armies, who had turned against the regime.

_FN-2187. A while since we had any word of you._ He was also one of only three beings in the whole Galaxy to wound the Supreme Leader and live to tell of it. Occasionally, Ren still felt the scar from that fight itch. It felt like… unfinished business.

Ren turned back to Yimur, and summoned more officers to him with a gesture. “Determine the Resistance’s course. We will move out in pursuit. Divert Torlun’s force as well. All other priorities are to subordinate to this order.”

“Lord,” a major began. “Can we be certain that-”

“The _Resistance_ are _here_ ,” hissed Gwaelyn, appearing as if she had just coalesced from the night. “They have arrived under our noses, taking every care not to be identified. Furthermore, their operatives are capable of killing our finest soldiers. It follows that they are here seeking something, which makes that our priority also.”

“Then it is settled,” Ren said. “We will pursue them, and we will eradicate them.” His eyes bored into the Knights and officers around him. “Make ready.”

As they moved deeper into the Tanacine district, the architecture changed subtly. The designs became less solid, the shapes of the buildings more varied. There was more glass – or rather, the evidence of more glass, but most of it was shards or dust on the ground, windows having been blown by First Order bombers.

It all felt, Finn thought, much less defensible. An extra worry where the Incom-Freitek facility was concerned. The original plan had been to secure the scientists and their designs, and make for the spaceport. Now, with the enemy storming through the city, even that was looking distinctly dicey now.

No Stormtroopers assailed Finn and his squad on their way north, but that only made the passage a little easier. Their path took them along several wreckage-strewn highways, and at one point over and under fallen sections of maglev rail. TIE Bombers had plied their trade here; there were deep craters here and there, and buildings which looked to have been ripped open by explosions.

Every time he ran, every time he had to haul or lever himself over something, Finn felt his injured shoulder throb. On a more internal level, he felt increasingly revolted by the whole thing. This was the assault on the Jakku village, but on a far greater scale. The shattering, hammer-blow brutality, followed up with a grinding slaughter designed to break the resolve of any who remained in the aftermath. This was the machine he’d been drilled and programmed to be a part of. And now it was turning remorselessly, carrying out the will of Kylo Ren.

He’d seen it before, but never so vast, so comprehensive. And worse still was the _thoroughness_ of it all; the whole arsenal of the First Order unleashed. The only consolation was that here, there were very few bodies. The majority of the civilians would be somewhere in shelters, waiting out the attack as best they could.

With a great effort, Finn dragged his mind back to the task at hand. Anger would fog his mind, make him reckless like he’d been on Crait. He couldn’t afford that now. Too many people were relying on him – and in any case, they were close to their objective and he could hear fighting ahead.

Inwardly, he cursed their delay, however small it had been and however worthwhile the rescue. He could still lament the time it cost them. That, and the speed of the enemy assault. Damn Ren and his brutality. Damn the hateful efficiency of the whole thing.

Rose, attentive as ever, saw his hand move to the beacon at his belt. “So we’re asking for help?”

“Got to,” Finn replied. The device had been handed to him by Captain Holterum, back at the spaceport. “The second we’re in, signal to Major Rulm. We need our squadron in orbit to extract us and whoever’s left of the defenders. Tannel, how’s it looking up ahead?”

Tannel hand found them a discreet vantage point. There were soldiers guarding the Incom-Freitek complex, but they were being sorely tested by the enemy. A company of Stormtroopers had pinned them down and was beginning to sic two AT-STs on them.

Finn knew the defenders wouldn’t have long on their own, and if these attackers were already here, more would soon follow. “No time for subtlety,” he murmured, lowering his binoculars and turning to LM-276. “Time to pull out the missile launchers.”

“Ah, I thought you’d never ask.” LM’s grating voice somehow suggested a grin.

“Let’s crack some armour,” Ki’rii grinned as she loaded hers and put her eyes to the scope. “Leg joints, remember.”

“Anyone got one going spare?” Cylarei asked. The others looked at her blankly. “Thought I’d ask.”

“I like you already,” Nyzar said. “There’ll be some left when the walkers are down, Cylarei.”

“If we’re quite done bonding for the moment,” LM said. Then he turned to Ki’rii. “You’ll take the one on the left?”

“Yep. See how many troopers I can squash with him.”

Finn shook his head, slotting a fresh power pack into his pistol. “Rose and Ki’rii, once the missiles are away I want you to hang back with Dade. Follow when we’ve cleared the way. And Dade,” he said, turning to the boy.

“Yes?”

“Hands over your ears.”

Tannel crouched down and flattened his ears as the missiles shot overhead. They burst against the AT-STs in bursts of purple light. One toppled sideways, legs smashed. The group of Stormtroopers beneath it scattered – not all quickly enough. The other, guided by LM-276’s keen electronic senses, exploded as its ammunition cooked off and caused even more mayhem for the squads around it.

“Now!” Finn yelled.

They burst from cover, closing the distance rapidly and dropping knots of Stormtroopers with carefully aimed bursts. Tannel aimed as he ran and took out a sergeant, and ducked behind the hulk of the fallen walker with Cylarei.

“Doing alright?” he asked her.

She drew a breath, grabbing a thermal detonator. “Think so. Feels like we’re keeping pace.” She primed the detonator and they nodded through the countdown. Then she turned and threw it. The second they heard the detonation, they sprang out of cover, firing again.

More grenades, lobbed by Finn and Nyzar, exploded in the enemy ranks, causing further disruption. On the other side of the fight, the Kerothime soldiers responded quickly to their sudden opening. The remaining Stormtroopers went down, and then the defenders were moving out into the open, hailing the newcomers.

“Friends? Declare yourselves!” Well, these ones weren’t pointing blasters at them. A positive sign, hopefully.

“We’re Resistance!” Nyzar boomed, tapping the emblem on his breastplate. At least the fact that the First Order tended not to deploy Zabraks ought to work in their favour, and you could hardly have found a broader chest to display the symbol of the Resistance. Nonetheless, Tannel and Cylarei exchanged a worried look.

“Your ticket out of here?” Finn prompted.

After a nervous few seconds, the shout came. “Come over!”

They crossed the ravaged… well, Tannel reckoned it had been a parking space to begin with, but it was hard to say with any certainty. There were ten or so soldiers stood on the other side, with maybe twenty more still in cover.

The captain who led them looked at the newcomers with frank astonishment. “You did all that?”

“Good evening to you too,” Rose said wryly.

Finn was all business. “Captain Finn and company, here for you plus the people and data you’re guarding.” He nodded at the destroyed scout walkers. “I assume you’re still keen on keeping them away from it?”

“Just so. Come with us.” The captain turned on his heel, but Finn grabbed his shoulder.

“No time,” he said, shaking his head. “The First Order probably knows about our mission. You men!” he barked, gesturing to some of the soldiers. “The scientists, the files. Let’s get ‘em!” He, Ki’rii and LM headed into the building.

That gave Tannel time to survey the defences around the building, and the defenders. A mix of soldiers, law enforcement and what looked like private security. On further enquiry, it seemed that a number of squads had fallen back to here when Ren’s forces broke defending positions elsewhere in the city. They were well-armed, even boasting some light artillery. No wonder the First Order had already been throwing scout walkers at it. Finn’s team probably had this arsenal to thank for the facility being intact at all.

Cylarei punched him lightly on the arm. “Well look at us, Tannel. We got the Resistance to their objective. Though,” she added reflectively, “I guess it’s not over ‘til we’re on their ships and out of here.”

“Our ships,” he corrected her. “You might as well paint the Resistance symbol on me right now.” She smiled and nodded at that. After what they’d seen the First Order do today, it seemed like the only natural response. Then Tannel had a thought. “I didn’t say thanks for getting me back to the ground, did I?”

She shrugged. “I don’t rightly remember.”

He proffered a hand. “Well, thanks. Just to be on the safe side.” And they shook.

Next to them both, Rose set Dade down for a second. “Holding up alright, Dade?”

He gave her a little smile. “Yes. You all seem… good.” Tannel caught and returned Rose’s smile, though he didn’t relax his grip on his blaster.

“Well, just a little longer and we’ll be safe.” Rose reached for her little holo unit. “Let me talk to the man who’s getting us off this world.” She made contact with Rulm and made her report. Contact made, extraction required immediately. Hopefully the Resistance would be as fast as she said, Tannel thought.

“Couldn’t you have moved them sooner?” Cylarei asked the captain as the troops took cover again, replacing spent power packs.

The captain made a face. “Transferring and purging files takes time. That, and the enemy hit faster than anyone expected.”

Cylarei shrugged. “Fair enough. It caught us out too. Still, all the more reason to move fast.”

Tannel was only half listening, though. Even as his friend spoke, he straightened up and turned away, staring back the way they’d come. Because somewhere behind them, he could hear engines, coming closer. And with those, the tramp of marching boots.

His hand was on his commlink before he knew what he was doing. He signalled Finn. “However fast they’re going in there, Captain,” he said, as the others began to pick up the sounds as well, and lights began to show through the smog. “You’d better get them to move faster.” He drew a breath. “The enemy are coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dade is among the Force-sensitive children in Colin Trevorrow's Episode IX script. I make no claim to the character.


	8. Last-Ditch

“Sir! Kylo Ren’s forces are on the move.”

Marshal Tolhen looked at Captain Holterum, stood by the holomap. Around them, the spaceport’s headquarters was almost frenzied with activity. Tolhen had his personnel divided between preparing for the First Order attack, and readying the transports and the remaining fighters to evacuate. If the Resistance fleet, as promised by Captain Finn, could just reach them in time…

He sighed, and squared his armoured shoulders. “It was only a matter of time, Captain. How soon can we expect them?”

“They’re… not coming for us, sir.” The Twi’lek officer gestured at the display, baffled. “There are units hemming us in here, but the Sixty-Sixth have broken from the formation and gone north. They’ve stormed through Tanacine and crushed the Twenty-Second and Fouth Companies.”

“Damn.” Tolhen studied the likely trajectory of the enemy, checking it against Finn’s last known position. “Captain Finn hasn’t quite gone unnoticed, I fear. Which puts the Incom-Freitek facility in imminent peril.”

“Marshal!” A comms operative beckoned to him. “Outside transmission, a Major Rulm, sir. Claims to be Resistance.”

“Do his codes check out?”

“Yes. Their fleet are inbound.”

“Which means some of us will have a way off this world, to continue the fight.”

A sharp electronic chirrup sounded from a unit on Holterum’s belt. “And that will be the Resistance operatives. They won’t make it out of there without assistance. Kylo Ren is going to flatten them.”

“But it takes some of the heat off our backs,” another captain said. “It gives us a chance to hold out that bit long-”

Tolhen didn’t raise his voice much. He simply brought it to something just short of a shout and sharpened his tone. “It doesn’t _matter_ how much longer we hold out here! Especially not compared to what it will mean if the Resistance don’t get those plans.”

The staff around him fell silent, staring at their leader.

“We are just one world,” Tolhen continued. He let his hand settle on the pommel of his vibro-sword. “One world can’t halt the First Order. But if we can pass on the means to fight back to a dozen other worlds, then a hundred… _that_ can make a difference.”

Tolhen stroked his beard, weighing the decision in his mind.

“Holterum, you are going to prepare for and lead the evacuation. The Resistance ships are inbound – we need to get every transport and fighter we can to them. But,” he added, turning back to Holterum. “I’m taking three squadrons – one of gunships, two of fighters. Signal my guard company to embark.”

“Sir?” the captain looked at him quizzically.

Tolhen gave him a wry smile. “I’m going to help our helpers.”

Kylo Ren hadn’t reached the Incom-Freitek facility yet. But he couldn’t be far off, and in any case, he’d sent another advance force. Even as Finn was rounding up scientists and making sure all their datasticks and discs were accounted for, Tannel had spoken to him over the commlink.

“They’re here, Captain.”

That had left them barely a minute to leave Dade with some of the civilian workers and get into position, as the enemy came at them. At least two hundred Stormtroopers, enough to pin the defenders in place. Finn couldn’t tell much more than that, with volleys snapping over his head. A dozen defenders were already down, his squad working overtime to plug the gaps.

They went about the task without a word of complaint, the local soldiers deferring to him with hardly a word. If it was to be a last stand, it would be an exemplary one. But it was so small, just one fight amid a much great battle.

More than that, it would be failure. Finn had undertaken this mission to make a difference, to snatch an advantage from under the First Order’s nose. All this, right down to putting himself between those troopers and Dade. All of it for nothing, if they couldn’t hold out and if the coming Resistance forces couldn’t somehow pull them out.

Finn couldn’t hold out much hope for that. The plan had been predicated on them getting the plans back to the spaceport and offworld. They hadn’t counted on Ren being here. They hadn’t counted on it getting this bad, so fast.

The sun had risen, but that only served to show how severe their situation now was. The First Order advance force had brought up three blocky repulsortanks along with a division of Stormtroopers, and set them straight away to the attack.

The fighting was furious enough that the roar of the wider battle in the city was drowned out. The enemy seemed to just keep coming. Even as Finn found and dropped targets, one of the tanks fired straight at an emplaced cannon, obliterating it and the unfortunate gunner. The soldiers nearby were caught up in the explosion and hurled bodily away.

“Take that bastard out!” Finn roared. Immediately, Ki’rii and LM took aim at the tank with their missile launchers and fired. The first projectile cracked the thick armour, Ki’rii’s keen eye finding an ammunition magazine. LM’s burrowed right into it, and the explosion tore the tank open in a booming explosion. But that was just a temporary reprieve, and losing the cannon was a serious loss.

The gunners on the remaining three hammered the other two tanks, losing another cannon to their onslaught before their volleys finally told and with the tanks were blasted apart. The Stormtroopers responded by falling back. Finn watched them go, hunkering down across the plaza from them, clearly unwilling to risk a frontal assault.

Briefly, he wondered why. At a guess, they didn’t want to make a messy massed attack, which could easily spill into the facility proper. It wouldn’t do to destroy the facility when it could be taken. The same technology Finn was meant to spirit away from Kerothime would serve to bolster their already monstrous war machine.

Another grim thought flitted through Finn’s mind; perhaps the Supreme Leader wanted to deal with the Resistance fighters personally, and just wanted them pinned in place until then. He might be flattering himself there – he knew Kylo Ren’s grudge against Rey ran much deeper – but still, he had wounded the bastard once, and he’d never forgotten the fury in Ren’s voice that night.

But then a busy rhythmic hammering sounded, and he realised that the enemy’s wait had been entirely practical. More walkers were coming, and those weren’t AT-STs making that sound. No, they were something worse – two hunched, crabbed shapes which now emerged from the smoke and dust. They were ugly things, all slabbed armour and bristling cannons.

“ _What_ are those?” demanded Cylarei next to him.

“All-Terrain Armoured Scouts,” he replied. “New toys, and nasty ones. Gonna need those rockets again!” he called to LM and Ki’rii.

“Aye!” they called, but he was quite aware that they knew the same thing as he did. They’d need a miracle to put down these monsters before their cover was torn open and their heavy guns silenced. The walkers halted just short of effective weapons range, the enemy readying themselves for the push.

They crouched down, switching out spent power packs. Missile launchers were primed. Finn’s commlink bleeped. He glanced down and saw the message. _In system. Have your position. ETA 15. HOLD ON._

He gritted his teeth. “So damn close, and yet-”

“Hey.” Rose squeezed his arm. “It’s not over ‘til it’s over, right?”

“Even so-”

She raised a reproachful eyebrow. “Don’t jinx it.”

Finn laughed. “I’ve never known bad things to come of saying I love you.”

This time, Rose squeezed his hand. “Love you too.”

For a moment, they shared a long look. Then there came a rumbling growl of servos as the walkers lurched into motion. Finn and the troops around him raised their blasters, seeking targets. “Brace yourselves,” he called. “Aim. Fi-”

“Incoming!” yelled someone behind him.

Finn turned to the man, but his words was lost in the roar of engines. Dark shapes – several dark shapes – eclipsed the rising sun. The next thing he knew, a laser shot stabbed down and speared an AT-ST, the machine erupting in a geyser of flame.

Fighters – not First Order TIEs but Kerothime craft – swept into view and rained down plasma and missiles on the First Order walkers and the troops around them. The Stormtroopers, to their credit, raised their blasters to the sky and fired back, but they had no hope against that kind of firepower. The AT-STs succumbed in mere seconds, shot through and fires igniting inside them. Briefly, they staggered like drunkards, still firing wildly. Then they came crashing down too.

The Heavy Scouts, with their thick armour, initially resisted, turning to fire up at the fighters and smashing a few out of the air. But their triumph was short-lived, for now a squadron of gunships came into view, sweeping the ground with blistering volleys. Heavy cannons cracked and then punched clean through armour. When they were done, only debris was left of the walkers, and the remaining Stormtroopers fell into retreat, leaving the plaza covered in broken white armour..

“What?” was all Cylarei could offer for a moment. Tannel couldn’t really think of anything to add, even when his ears had stopped ringing. Everyone else seemed to be either cheering or as speechless as him.

The gunships had come to ground, setting down just ahead of them. Kerothime soldiers were pouring out – not just any soldiers, Tannel realised, but the High Command elite. And among them.

“Marshal,” he breathed.

Finn was quicker, moving cautiously out of cover to greet Tolhen. Murmurs and whispers were starting to build among the other defenders. The fighters which had accompanied the transports whirled above their heads, watching for any more attackers. 

Tolhen spoke first, a slight smile visible beneath his beard. “Ren’s forces looked to be coming your way. I thought we might try and pre-empt them.” He gestured to the transports. “As well as giving you a faster route offworld.” It was at that point that he noted Cylarei and Tannel. “Ah, my troopers did come through. I’d hoped as much.”

“They’re a credit to your planet,” Finn said, and Tannel couldn’t surprise a little swell of pride in his chest. Then the captain added, “Rose, you and Ki’rii go and fetch Dade and the scientists.”

The two women had scarcely gone back into the building then a low rumble began to build in the distance. A much larger army was advancing towards them.

Tolhen sighed heavily. “That will be the Supreme Leader, I suppose. Coming directly to us.”

Finn nodded. “Either he’s onto the same thing we were after,” Finn murmured, “or he’s sensed me here.”

“Well,” responded Tolhen. “Whichever it is, you’d all best be on your way.”

Finn shot him a look, but the old soldier smiled grimly.

“The transports will only fit so many and in any case, someone’s got to stand as the rearguard.” He looked around, taking in the remaining defenders, the scientists and the other civilians around him. “You’ve held on long enough. We’ll go to head the enemy off, and the Resistance will take care of you on the other side. But you must leave, now.” His gaze lingered on the discs in Rose’s hands, and the boy clinging to Rose’s back. “You carry my world’s hope with you, my friends. Be sure to bring it back one day.”

Finn saluted. “I’ll owe it to you, Marshal.”

Tolhen took his hand in a firm grip and shook it. “You’ll find a way, I’m sure of it.”

“But what can you do alone?” Tannel asked.

The Marshal gave him a rakish grin, drawing his vibrosword and gesturing to his guard company. “I’m not alone. And besides, your escape needs covering. An officer and his guards might give the enemy pause. And if Ren opts to take the prize himself, I'll see to it that the Supreme Leader has a scar to remember Kerothime by. Now go, and may the Force be with you!” he barked. With that he and his men strode off, towards the coming enemy.

For a moment, the Resistance operatives and the others paused, watching them go. “You heard the man,” Finn called. That broke the spell, and people began to move. He and the Scrappers ushered people onto the gunships, glancing nervously skyward. The First Order would have spotted them. There would be fighters coming to blast them out of the sky.

Rose turned to one of the Incom-Freitek people, a Twi’lek women. “There’s nothing left in there for the enemy to find, right?”

The scientist nodded. “We’ve wiped the whole database. What we’re carrying are the only copies. The First Order will never have them.”

His squad all clambered aboard the lead gunship, Rose taking the seat next to the pilot. “Key into this homing frequency,” she told the man, flashing her comm unit. Then she hit the audio unit. “Major Rulm.”

The officer’s voice crackled out. “Lieutenant Tico, you had us worried. We’re ready to drop from hyperspace and retrieve you.”

“Well, hope the Force is with us that little bit longer,” Finn said, as the transports began to climb skyward. “We’re coming to you.”

Tolhen stood his ground on the boulevard, his men in serried ranks around him. Battered as they were, they stood tall. He took heart from that. He couldn’t have chosen finer soldiers to meet his end alongside.

They held formation even as the massed footfalls of heavy boots heralded the emergence of black-armoured troopers from the murk, and the enemy shield wall parted to allow Kylo Ren through. The Supreme Leader and his Knights advanced to within five metres, and halted.

There was a sudden silence, as the two leaders stood and regarded each other. They were equally tall, Tolhen perhaps a little broader. Then the quiet was broken by the sullen buzz of Ren’s modulated voice. “Marshal Tolhen. I assume you intend to observe the old formalities?”

“I intend to spill your blood, Ren,” Tolhen replied lightly.

“A sad waste.” Ren called his lightsaber into his hand. “A man of your talents could prosper under the First Order, not least if you hand us your scientists and their work. You could have a world of your own, or any command you desired.”

“My talents might fit me for your service,” Tolhen said. “But my conscience never would.”

Ren sighed, just a little, and shifted into a battle-stance. “So it comes down to blood?”

“It always will, for tyrants like you. Now come on, Ren, and bleed for your conquest.”


	9. Fight Free

As the gunships rose into the stratosphere, they and their fighter escort were joined by a multitude of craft. Bombers, gunships, cumbersom cargo haulers, all taking wing from the spaceport and streaking upward. TIE Fighters moved to intercept but the escapees were too many, and moving much too high up.

Finn caught giddy smiles among the people around him, but he shook his head worriedly. “We’re not out of it yet.” And still no sign of the Resistance in-system, when he checked his comms unit.

Sure enough, once they were outside the atmosphere the picture changed. TIE Fighters and Interceptors swarmed ahead, all screaming in on attack vectors. The Kerothime fighters leapt to meet them, and the space became a lethal ballet as they tried to fend them off from the escaping transports.

Finn felt distinctly nervous. The gunship had turrets, but it was no Millennium Falcon with all the attendant speed. All it would take was for enough TIEs to target them, and that would be their fate sealed. The fighters had to hang in there, whilst still providing cover for the transports.

So far, they were. The Kerothime pilots were good, and they had the measure of the First Order by now. As Finn watched, one of the few remaining Spitedragons tore through a squadron of TIEs, leaving only one to pull away.

“They’re holding,” LM said, watching through the viewport.

“Don’t speak to soon,” Cylarei reproached him. “There’s worse yet to-” she let out an angry hiss. “There!”

“A kriffing Silencer again,” rasped Tannel. A chill ran through Finn. The fastest, most vicious fighter the First Order had was coming at them, on top of all the other TIE-shaped threats.

There it was, moving rapidly, already spitting green light from its cannons as it came on. One of the bulky haulers was first to go, gutted by torpedoes and spinning away into the inky blankness. Then a bomber, disintegrating when a pinpoint shot found its payload.

“The turrets!” Finn yelled, and scrambled to man the starboard one himself. He primed it, turning it hard to cover the rear as much as he could.

“Ready!” called Cylarei, settling into the port one.

“Then light ‘em up!”

Vivid red bolts of plasma leapt from the barrel as he fired, joined moments later by the rest of the gunships. TIEs were caught and blown apart, Finn taking out two with a raking volley. The report of the gun sent pain searing up through his shoulder, but he hung on, hauling the gun around to hammer the attacking fighters.

The Silencer however, jinked and spun away, coming back in a howling dive that caught and blew apart two of the escorts.

“He’s taking out the fighters,” Tannel hissed, and with a sinking feeling, Finn recognised the pattern as well. The Silencer, as well as the craft which came in its wake, were cutting out and destroying the escort craft, stripping the rest of their protection. Even with the guns they mounted, they couldn’t hold out against this attack.

The starfield beyond beckoned mockingly. After all this, they were so close, but so overmatched, doomed to be torn apart before help could reach them.

“Karabast,” growled Nyzar. Because now the Silencer came right for them in a rapid, spiralling dive, closer and closer, cleaving through the void to-

A torpedo smashed into the Silencer’s engine block and blew the fighter apart in a bloom of fire and a maelstrom of black metal fragments. A white-and-blue shape flashed by, canons blazing red.

“Is that-” Cylarei started, but she was drowned out by the cheers from the others. The unmistakable shapes of X-Wing fighters shot into view, accompanied by a B-Wing and squadron of smaller A-Wings.

Finn slumped back in his seat, watching them pass. “Blue, Silver and Violet,” he murmured, a wave of relief passing through him as his commlink chattered. “Snap, you really picked your moment.”

“You’re welcome,” Snap chuckled.

The TIEs, taken wholly by surprise, were set upon and overwhelmed, blasted to atoms by the Resistance fighters. Ahead, at the edge of the First Order formation, a small squadron of Resistance ships sprang into realspace, led by the battleship _Aldera_.

Calling what remained of the Kerothime fleet to them, the Resistance vessels went on the offensive. With fierce broadsides, they drove the nearest Star Destroyers into retreat, their hulls cracked and stripped of guns. More fighter squadrons raced out into the void, striking hard at the TIE wings and keeping them from the Kerothime craft.

The newcomers couldn’t stand against the overwhelming numbers of the invaders, and certainly not the looming _Subjugator_ , but then that had never been the plan. They held just long enough for the escaping craft from the surface to get aboard the ships, and made the jump for hyperspace.

Finn still didn’t quite let out the breath he had pent-up until Rulm could assure him that the new jamming arrays had done their work, and no one was tracking them. When he did, he slumped back, finally allowing himself to feel the aches and pains of his exertions.

“Hey.” Rose prodded him gently. “Don’t fall asleep just yet. We need to show our new friends to the bridge, and Rulm’s gonna want to debrief you. Probably pin a medal on you too.”

Finn sighed. “This is what we normally have Poe for.”

“Maybe, but this way the applause will mostly be for you. And deservedly so.” She kissed him, letting him slip his arms around her, and for a while they simply held each other. “You were inspiring down there, Finn.”

“Thanks.” Finn looked past her, and found Dade asleep on the seat. “Let’s find him a cabin along the way.”

The boy showed no signs of waking up as Finn carried him out into the hangar and then the corridors. “He’s a little like you and Paige now,” he mused quietly. “One more kid whose home is gone because of the First Order.”

Rose gave him a small, sad smile, and squeezed his arm. “A kid who’d have lost even more, if not for you, Finn. We’ll get him to somewhere safe, and in time we’ll get him a teacher.”

That did go a way towards lifting Finn’s spirits. “I wonder where we can take him,” he wondered. “Rey won’t be ready to teach him for a long time, even if we win the war tomorrow.” And as if any proof were needed, today demonstrated that that wasn’t about to happen. It would be a long road to beating the First Order.

“There’ll be somewhere,” Ki’rii said by way of announcing herself. “There are a few little enclaves out there, refuges for the families of Resistance fighters. Dade will be safe there, until we drag Kylo off his throne. Same for the other civilians, if they don’t find a place in one of our bases. And as for the scientists…” Finally, her trademark grin was back in place. “Ah, let’s get to the bridge already. I want to see what designs we’ve retrieved.”

So Finn dragged himself to his feet, and willed his battered body to move. Soon he’d see Rey and Poe, and they’d enfold him and Rose in their arms and tell him that they’d known he’d come through but still, they were proud as hell of him. That thought would carry him through the rest of today’s business – that, and the knowledge of what he fought for.

As it always was. As it always would be.

Tannell and Cylarei were sat by one of the viewports, watching hyperspace flow formlessly by. To Tannell, it seemed apt somehow.

There was a sense of muted celebration aboard the _Aldera_. The Incom-Freitek files had been shown to the Resistance commanders, and turned out to contain a wealth of designs. Schematics for new weapons systems and potent new craft. There was a powerful gunship among them, something they called an H-Wing and which they reckoned would pack a bigger punch than anything the Resistance currently flew in. It already had people making comparisons to the original Incom escape, which had brought the X-Wing to the Rebel Alliance.

But all of that was cold comfort to Tannel, as he sat and watched home grow ever more distant. He was filthy, and exhausted. If not for the latter, he’d have been more bothered about the former. His fur was matted and caked with dust. Cylarei’s native blue complexion was almost lost under it. But neither of them could trust their legs to carry them a few metres right now, let alone to find a fresher.

“So that’s our world’s freedom gone,” he eventually said. “I knew it had to happen, logically I mean…” He looked up at Cylarei, giving her a small, sad smile. “But I wasn’t ready to see it all go down, you know?”

“Yeah,” Cylarei sighed.

“It doesn’t really get easier,” came Finn’s voice. “But we did what needed to be done.”

They looked up as he approached. He looked almost as shattered as them. His armour was off now, and the lower portion of a bacta sleeve was visible under his shirtsleeve.

“Captain,” Cylarei said, and they both found themselves saluting. “Thanks for leading us out of there.”

“You’re more than welcome,” he smiled, sitting down with them. “Without the two of you, we probably wouldn’t have found our way through the city in time. Wouldn’t have come through those fights so cleanly either.”

“I just wish we could’ve done more,” Tannel said.

Finn put a hand on his shoulder. “We did what good we could, and right now that’s how we find a way to fight back and win. Keep the spark lit, keep rebuilding. These designs can make the difference for the next system, and the one after that. Ren can’t keep up this kind of pace forever. The First Order is weaker than it looks. And when that weakness shows, we will be the ones to jump on it.”

“Are you building to something here, Captain?” Cylarei asked warily.

“Yeah.” Finn smiled. “Assuming you’re both keen to carry on the fight with us…” He smiled when the two of them nodded. “I’d like to make a pitch before you go to just be assigned to a squadron or a company. Because I think you could be put to better use alongside myself and our Jedi.”

Tannel almost said something at that point, but stopped himself, realising the full import of what was being said, as Finn continued.

“Where I fight – where Rey and I fight – we need more than just good soldiers with us. We need the exceptional. We need warriors. And based on everything I’ve seen today, you two are exactly the type I want at my side.”

“We’d all welcome you,” Ki’rii added, walking over with the others. “You had our backs all the way through the mission.”

“So what do you say?” Finn asked. “Rebel scum?”

Tannel glanced at the group, and then one another. “Rebel scum.”

Kylo Ren stepped over the corpse of Marshal Tolhen, glancing momentarily at the shallow cut in the crook of his elbow. Blood glinted on his armour in the firelight. A little nick, the only blow that Tolhen had landed before Ren cut him down, and yet it was enough to spoil the moment, somehow. The old soldier had wounded him, true to his vow. And however inconsequential the injury, that bothered Ren.

_It matters not. He is dead, and now I will see this world broken to the yoke of my First Order._

But of course, it did matter in quite a substantial way. The Resistance had fled Kerothime with the plans. Tolhen and his company’s last stand had kept Ren from them, and his companies advancing along other routes had not been quick enough.

Darkness still swallowed the city, thanks to the dust and smoke, but he noted the faint light of the risen sun nonetheless. He could almost hear old Skywalker’s voice, some wry aphorism about hope. He scowled, and turned back to practical matters.

Griss had confirmed the enemy’s escape into hyperspace, with no hope of tracking them. So Ren, followed at a cautious distance by the Knights, stalked among the bodies of the Marshal’s company and the First Order’s fallen, letting his rage simmer. He found himself fantasising that the Traitor had stayed behind, so at least their vendetta could be finished tonight.

Once upon a time, that might have happened. He had, after all, watched the same man make that hopeless lone charge on Crait. But no. When he reached and entered the Incom-Freitek facility, tolerating an initial sweep by his elite, the place was dark and lifeless. Everything of value was taken or destroyed.

Gwaelyn drew close. He almost heard the question form in her throat as she glanced at his wounded arm.

To forestall any question or remark, he shot her a hard look through the dark lenses of his helmet. “It can wait. We do not stay the execution for a little blood.” He turned to one of his captains. “Is the Parliament secured?”

“Yes, Supreme Leader… but the political leadership was evacuated. The Resistance has them.” Another little victory which the enemy had snatched from the jaws of defeat.

Ren turned to the rest of his servants. “Then they are fled, and have merely prolonged the inevitable. Our power was too great for them, and so the planet is ours.” He had the nagging sense that the words didn’t sound as solid and certain as he wanted them to. With some effort, he banished the thought. “For now, we had best get the formalities over with. We will pronounce Kerothime’s fate to its people, and they will go to their knees in submission.” And that was the battle done. He had a new world in his grip, but somehow, it still felt hollow.

His hand curled into an armoured fist. _Next time, traitor. Next time._


End file.
